teh Jai

Depends on the nature of your RFE. I had one for AOS because our wedding officiant didn't submit the marriage certificate to the county. We got that rectified, and our immigration attorney sent the new documents to USCIS on 2 May.

My Permanent Resident Card arrived on 24 May (though, with a spelling error so that's a whole new bucket of suck). Judging by the quick turnaround on my application, I would definitely venture that it varies depending on what, exactly, the RFE requires and how in-depth it needs to be. I assume that in my case they just needed to see a marriage cert and issued the card immediately thereafter.

My huge thing was that reading these forums turned me into a paranoid ball of nerves. Some people would say you need to do X, but my instructions say Y, and ... yeah. I'm actually considering myself back now, and totally ready to chat it up with Canucks. I'm just waiting to get my passport, then hop to Newfoundland to see my parents and grandparents, and then off to the USA I go.

Am I supposed to be more frightened than excited?

Mine was done and approved on Fri 9 Sep, the worst part was actually *waiting* to be interviewed. Things were so backed up they had to give me a pass to leave the consulate to check out of my hotel. Once I got back, though, I waited about 10 minutes, was asked two questions and approved.

Now I'm in the "hur dur where's my passport" phase, and I need it because I have to go home to Newfoundland to visit the family before POE.

In Toronto you can get your results in 48 hours. I ended up going to Toronto because I couldn't get in touch with a person in Montreal to get a medical booked.

Was asked all of two questions, but it's over. Now just waiting to get my passport back so I can get on with life.

The medical people will advise you, so send them a letter or give them a call, then make the arrangements with your family doctor and/or health unit. I got my immunizations updated for free.

Hey all:

So I'm completing the forms for Packet 3 as per the instructions for Montreal consulate.

One of these is the DS-156K form, which states that I MUST attach birth certificates, police record checks, etc to the form. However, the consulate AND my immigration lawyer have said that these documents are only required to be in my hand at the time of the interview.

Anyone got any ideas?

Just chiming in to update; Packet 3 was sent to my immigration lawyer. I now have a copy of the checklist, my case number, and now know how to proceed.

All is now well!

A: Its take up to a month for USCIS forward the case to NVC, so wait until the lawyer gets the VISA AND AOS BILLs, you then can pay all at once

B: When the case is approved, they will not have anymore info for you since the case is already forwarded to NVC.

C: CALL NVC and ask them, probally they will tell did not get the case because it takes time for it to get into the computer. IN YOUR APPROVED letter they stating that it could been up to 90 days before calling NVC... could you at least the letter first?

A: Well, okay, but we're hitting that month mark pretty hard and I'm feeling as though I'm in limbo given that three parties have ZERO information.

B: If other threads are any indication, I can use my USCIS case number to get started with NVC, though, correct?

C: Yes, I have at least read my letter first. We received it almost a month ago, which is why I am posting this query *now* and not on, say, 10 Jan. As far as I can recall, our NOA2 letter - read to me by my fiance - indicated we were approved and that things would be sent off to the (admittedly wrong, but that's okay) consulate. There were no timeframes mentioned whatsoever, as far as both of us can recall. He has all the initial paperwork (he's the USC, I'm the foreigner) and is out at work right now, so we can't double-check this for sure. We'll look again and check to see if there was a postulated timeframe we missed, but we scoured that letter top-to-bottom the day we got it.

I suggest calling NVC. I started calling the five days after my NOA2. My fiance (the USC) didn't receive a letter from them until recently even though they received my case on January 13th.

I'm trying to track down a contact number that doesn't result in endless ringing and/or busy signal.

I'm going to preface this with the following: we ARE using a lawyer simply because we work opposing shifts and we feel more secure that way. However, we're fully aware of what the process should generally look like.

So our NOA2 was dated 5 Jan 2011, valid until 5 May 2011. It initially said that my consulate was Toronto, which I know from reading here is probably just an error that NVC will correct upon receipt of our case from USCIS. My understanding is that it happens, but is by no means a show-stopper.

We have both been watching our mail and e-mail, and our lawyer's been in touch too (I mean, we have the NOA2, it's not like she's scamming us or anything), and so far we have received absolutely nothing concerning the NVC. We do not have a case number for them. USCIS login still shows us at "post decision activity", but is indicating we are approved.

I have a few questions concerning this:

a) Could the delay be just administrative? Obviously our petition needs a correction - the Toronto consulate does not process the I-129f.

b) Is it possible to contact USCIS via telephone and ask them what has happened? Will they have any information?

c) Should I at all be concerned about the lack of communication as to "next steps"?

Yours has GOT to be coming soon - we were rec'd by USCIS on 21 Jul and just got NOA2 today. If yours has had no issues, I'd guess your NOA2 is coming. My guess is that the holidays kinda threw a wrench in the "five months" thing. Technically we were 5 months and two weeks.

That's not to say USCIS doesn't suck -- they do, but I'd chalk that more up to the bureaucracy than the actual pencil pushers who look through our stuff. I'm sure they work as hard as they can.

Still, call them, get in touch with your congress-people, and just keep pushing for answers.

Hey OP, we're filing date twins! VSC received our petition on 21 Jul, which will make 21 Dec our 5-month mark too!

Though, I'm with VSC, and then dealing with the infamous Montreal Consulate, so ... who knows? Hehe, I just want to move on to Phase Two of this entire thing.

Me: Choline, 80 Rogue, The Scryers; Kinase, 54 Paladin, Moon Guard

Him: Taxol, 80 Shaman, The Scryers; Anatoly, 80 Paladin, The Scryers; Jazindra, 54 Mage, Moon Guard

All of these are Alliance. I have baby Horde toons on Deathwing, and he's got more 80s there.

We didn't meet because of WoW, but we certainly ended up spending more time together because of it.

Depending on your credit card company (if your cards are with a standalone company and not issued through your bank) you may be able to get in touch with a transfers department who will assist you with closing out a Canadian funds card and transferring it to a US funds card. You can still hold a Canadian credit card and live in the USA, but you will be charged currency conversion fees if you choose to use it. Just be ABSOLUTELY SURE you call them and update your address and phone numbers. Also, even if you hold onto it for emergencies, check up periodically as some companies can and do cancel accounts due to inactivity. You don't want to have saved the card for emergencies and then have it not work!

Of course, cancelling the cards is always acceptable, but by no means required.

*totally doesn't work for a credit card company, ohno.*

You say drug addiction.

While I'd never advocate lying, the fact of the matter is that exposure or one-off use does not constitute an addiction. I believe that is the sort of thing you'd likely expect to receive questions about.

If you are not a regular user, I would not be too concerned about it.

So we just had our consult, and it's a good thing we did consult first, as my summers working for the Canadian Forces could have potentially blindsided us.

But now we know what needs to be done, and we've decided, for now at least, to go ahead with legal counsel just as a matter of having the information all in one place.

We're set to begin filing the K-1 by the end of the month.

Hi Jai! I live in Pembroke! Welcome to VJ. Do yourself a favor and take the advice of others here and try to do your application yourselves. It's much simpler than you might think. Good luck on your journey!

Hah! That's awesome!

BTW, my old user-ID was bahleeted (I had an internet outage), so this is me again! Thanks to everyone thus far for the advice. The reason we're consulting with a lawyer (as a first step, we're still not sure if we're going to actively hire him/her) is because we're relatively clueless as to what to do and this really isn't the sort of thing we can afford to botch up at this point (Basically my personal situation in Canada is starting to escalate to a 'Leave. Now.' sort of thing). Also some professional advice as to which route is best given our particular circumstances couldn't go awry.

We're not placing our faith 100% in legal counsel, but we -are- doing the free consultation for advice (that happens on Monday, actually.). Depending on how that goes, we'll either initiate the process ourselves or do it with this lawyer's guidance.